around 5 years ago I saw a sign for a skyscraper under construction at 7 South Dearborn, which was going to be the largest building in the world. can anyone update me on what happened to that? did they build it shorter, or cut the project, or what?

I think that plan must have been scrapped, because there's a building going up on the corner of Madison and Dearborn known as 1 South Dearborn that isn't supposed to be insanely tall or anything as best as I can tell. I'm sure the design was scrapped after 9/11, as the design was also changed post-9/11 for the Hyatt Center to which Mayer Brown recently moved.

The building at 1 South Dearborn will be the new offices for Sidley Austin when it's done.

Does the fact that I'm bothered that it violates the Burnham Plan make me some sort of crypto-statist? It would be nice to see a new big building going up in Chicago, as long as its due to honest capitalism and not some deformed public/private collusion.